Big Tech pushes back against H-1B visa denials

Companies signing letter include Walmart, Google, Microsoft

Reuters
Compete America, which represents Amazon.com, Google, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Walmart, Deloitte and other big companies, says federal authorities are denying and obstructing H-1B applications for improper reasons. Above, employees work at packing stations on the main floor at the Amazon fulfillment center in Kent, Wash., this past month.

Mercury News

President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the H-1B visa is wreaking havoc on U.S. employers, says a group whose members include many of Silicon Valley’s largest technology companies.

In a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of Homeland Security, industry group Compete America said Citizenship and Immigration’s approach to deciding who gets an H-1B was “leaving employers with a disruptive lack of clarity about the agency’s practices, procedures and policies.”

Compete America said its members were reporting a “dramatic increase” over the past 18 months in the number of H-1B applications denied or held up by demands for more information, and a “sharp increase” in notices of intent to deny or revoke H-1B visas.

The H-1B, intended for jobs requiring specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher, has become a flashpoint in America’s immigration debate, with tech companies pushing for an expansion of the annual 85,000 cap on new visas, and critics charging that U.S. companies use it to supplant American workers with cheaper, foreign labor.

The reported effects of the Trump administration’s clampdown on the H-1B come as the administration moves forward with its stated plans to change the way the H-1B lottery is run to favor workers with higher education levels, and to strip work authorization from spouses of H-1B holders on track for green cards.

Mercury News

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